1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electronic component comprising a substrate and a baked electrode provided on the substrate. The baked electrode is used for a through-hole or a via-hole, for example.
2. Description of Related Art
As shown in the cross sectional view of FIG. 1(a), electrical connection through-holes of a ceramic substrate 1 has been achieved by applying an electrically conductive composition comprising a conductive material, such as Ag--Pd or Ag--Pt, to the through-hole 2 having a diameter of 0.3 to 0.5 mm, which is made by means of a mold or a laser beam, by screen printing, followed by calcination to form a thick-film conductor 3 on the inner wall of the through-hole 2.
With the recent tendency to size reduction and density increase of electronic equipment, the diameter of through-holes has become as small as about 0.1 mm, and accordingly, the above-described electrical connection is now being replaced with filling the through-hole 2 with a conductive composition as shown in FIG. 1(b).
However, when a conventional conductive composition used in electronic components is put into through-holes of about 0.1 mm in diameter and calcined, the resulting conductor tends to suffer from a discontinuity as shown in FIG. 2(a) or separation from the inner wall as shown in FIG. 2(b) due to shrinkage on calcination, resulting in poor electrical reliability of the through-holes.